Designated partners' eligibility

(i) Eligibility of designated partners (s. 7, Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008):

1. Every LLP must have at least two designated partners who are individuals, at least one of them resident in India.
2. Where all the partners are bodies corporate, or some are individuals and some bodies corporate, at least two individuals who are partners or nominees of the bodies corporate act as designated partners.
3. "Resident in India" meant, when this paper was set, a person who had stayed in India for at least 182 days during the immediately preceding one year (Explanation to s. 7); the requirement is now 120 days during the financial year.
4. An individual must give his prior consent to act as a designated partner, in the prescribed form and manner, must satisfy the conditions the Rules prescribe, and must obtain a Designated Partner Identification Number (s. 7(3), (5), (6)); once he is appointed, the LLP files his particulars with the Registrar, in the prescribed form and manner, within thirty days of the appointment (s. 7(4)). Under rule 10(1) of the LLP Rules, 2009, as it now stands (substituted in 2018), an individual who is to be appointed designated partner of an existing LLP applies electronically in Form DIR-3 to obtain the DPIN, and a Director Identification Number (DIN) is sufficient for the appointment.
5. Being a partner himself (unless he is a corporate partner's nominee), he must be capable of being one: s. 5 rules out a person found by a competent court to be of unsound mind while that finding stands, an undischarged insolvent, and a person whose application to be adjudged insolvent is pending.
6. The conditions the Rules prescribe (LLP Rules, 2009, rule 9(1)): no one may be appointed a designated partner who, within the preceding five years, has been adjudged insolvent; who suspends, or has within the preceding five years suspended, payment to his creditors without having made a composition with them within that period; or who has been convicted of an offence involving moral turpitude and sentenced to at least six months' imprisonment, or of an offence involving section 30 of the Act. The Central Government may remove the first two disqualifications by notification (rule 9(2)).